Fantastic customer project by “Teknynja” for driving NeoPixel strips over large distances using CAT5 cable shared on the Adafruit Forums! And check out his blog post for detailed how-to:
While working on an outdoor Christmas project using NeoPixel strips, I ran into a small problem. I wanted to be able to have several groups of pixels many feet apart from each other, but still all synchronized and controlled by the same single controller. I worked out a way to use RS-485 drivers to push the data through CAT5 cable, along with using small, low cost DC/DC converters to distribute the power to the remote strips. I was able to control a full 5 meter roll of NeoPixels through 100 feet of CAT5 using the technique, more than enough for my project.
You can check out all the gory details here.
Thank you to all of you for your excellent blog and forum posts, without which my lurking (and learning) would not be possible!
Featured Adafruit Product!
Adafruit NeoPixel Digital RGB LED Weatherproof Strip 30 LED -1m – WHITE: You thought it couldn’t get better than our world-famous 32-LED-per-meter Digital LED strip but we will prove you wrong! These NeoPixel strips have 30 digitally-addressable pixel LEDs per meter and are very affordable and are only 12.5 mm wide, 10 mm if you remove the strip from the casing. This is the strip with white flex PCB, its identical to the black 30 LED/meter except it has a different color mask on the flex strip. (read more)